But, deeper in the list, down in the compilations was the new RSD exclusive Soul Slabs Vol. 1 compilation of the legendary 7″ R&B/Soul/Funk releases from the Ohio-based Colemine Records. In 2014 Colemine released a compact disc compilation of singles called 20/45 in celebration of their seventh birthday. Soul Slabs is an update of that compilation, bringing the collection up to 2016. There is a pretty big overlap of the two releases, but since this is on vinyl and updated, it really is the more essential release in my opinion. It doesn’t miss the big cuts: Ikebe Shakedown’s “Hard Steppin'” is pretty much an R&B classic at this point– Colemine reissued the single for RSD a couple of years ago and reissued the Hard Steppin’ EP on vinyl. Orgone has been a force for a few years, and the releases on Colemine are an essential addition to their catalog– their release Beyond the Sun is positively breathtaking and should be in everyone’s soul collection. That goes for Durand Jones and the Indications new LP as well. Damn. Colemine started a subscription service of sorts where they email you about new exclusive releases and they give you a chance to buy it before it goes totally public. A lot of those releases are on this comp too: Soul Scratch, The Ephemerals, Kris Lager, Gene Washington & The Ironsides.

With Record Store Day 2016 fast approaching (April 16th), I wanted to post about a few releases that I’m interested in. I already posted about the Son Volt Live at the Bottom Line previously. Tom Petty has been a supporter of RSD from the start with special reissues of his first two albums and a vinyl-only (plus download) live compilation titled Kiss My Amps for Black Friday RSD 2011.

Announced with the rest of the Official RSD list for this year is a sequel– Kiss My Amps Live Vol. 2. Volume 1 focused on the Mojo Tour from 2010. Volume 2 focuses on dates in 2013 and is made up of tracks that were given to members of the Tom Petty fanclub Highway Companions as part of their subscription as a digital download. Notably, Kiss My Amps Volume 1 was not made up of theMojo Tour 2010 download the club got, but were different tracks.

It will be pressed on 180g vinyl and includes covers by The Byrds, Paul Revere and the Raiders/The Monkees, Little Feat and a Traveling Wilburys song. They had to take a track off of it (“Baby, Please Don’t Go”) because the original digital download was 55 minutes and it is tricky to get that much audio per side of an LP and have it sound good. (Even minus the 5:22 of “Baby Please Don’t Go” it’s pretty tight at 49 minutes (24+ per side). Optimally, you want less than 22 minutes per side to get the full bass frequencies.

The standout track on here for me is the 8:46 minute version of “Tweeter and the Monkey Man.” For that track alone, this set is essential.

Bull Moose Records lists this at MSRP of $19.98 with their price being $17.97. So, expect your RSD participating store to have it around these prices.

In other Tom Petty news for RSD, there will be a Mudcrutch 7″ featuring tracks from the upcoming Mudcrutch album 2. The A-side is “Trailer” which is a reworking of the Southern Accents outtake. The original version can be heard on the flipside of the “Don’t Come Round Here No More” 7″ or on disc 4 The Other Sides of the Playback boxset. A really great track, and is worthy of a revisit. The song would have improved the song lineup of Southern Accents, in my opinion.

On October 30th, we were blessed with the 20th Anniversary remastered reissue of Jay Ferrar‘s debut post-Uncle Tupelo album Trace. Widely regarded as one of the great early Americana releases, it was due for some reissue love and attention. For one thing, it got a much-needed 180g vinyl release, which saved me personally– I narrowly avoided spending $75 on a new-old-stock copy from Ferrar’s site (Discogs.com has had copies going for over twice that amount!). Secondly, the CD and download versions were expanded to include bonus demos and a 2nd disc of their February 12, 1996 performance at The Bottom Line in New York City.

Ferrar said in a recent interview about the show, “In terms of the Bottom Line show, yeah, it’s a live show, and there will be some hiccups here and there, but part of what I can hear is that it sounds like my singing voice is almost scorched from smoking cigarettes. You know, there was a very small dressing room at the back of that club, and it was probably the size of a closet. At that time, all five guys in the band were smokers, so that record could’ve just been called, Five Dudes Smoking in a Closet. [Laughs] I can still sing it seems like, but I can barely talk… It was recorded with that mobile recording truck on analog tapes, so you’re not going to get a better sound than that. I wish I had more information on that truck; I couldn’t really track it down. There was a similar show, if not this one, that was recorded with the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording truck. Doing a little research, their truck was in New York in 1996 when this show was recorded, but I just can’t say for sure it was the one.”

Here is the tracklist. We don’t know how the songs will be split up by LP side yet. It includes most of the songs from Trace (not the Ron Wood cover “Mystifies Me”) as well as some Uncle Tupelo songs and a Del Reeves cover.

The southwestern corner of Ohio might not be on the list of notable hotbeds of soul music like Memphis, Philly or Detroit but Loveland, OH is the home of Colemine Records. Label head Terry Cole has been diligently curating releases of hot Soul 7-inches and LP’s since 2007. I’ve been following his releases closely since about 2009 and next to Daptone, I think that Colemine is an important documenter of the new resurgence of R&B and Soul.

One of Colemine’s early releases was a 7″ from Brooklyn “Cinematic Soul” ensemble Ikebe Shakedown. Released in 2009 to acclaim, the record has been out-of-print for a few years and copies on discogs.com have gone for up to $60! For Black Friday Record Store Day, Colemine is re-issuing this landmark single in yellow transparent vinyl. There are only going to be 300 of these Ikebe Shakedown yellow 45s available on Black Friday Record Store Day and you’re going to have to go to an actual physical shop to get them. Ask your favorite record store to hit up Colemine if they are interested in stocking this rare single or any other of the fine releases.

So, you get this all sorted out and you’re asking yourself, “How can I avoid ever missing another Colemine release?!” Well, Colemine is here to help. Starting this week they have announced a groovy subscription service. This service seems to be MUCH more convenient than others I’ve looked at. For one, you are opting in to be informed of a new release (which will include rare pressings and alternate pressings) and will have one reserved for you. They’ll send you a PayPal Invoice for the release plus shipping and you have ten days pay the invoice before the offer expires. Easy-peasy and you don’t have to worry about being on the hook for a release.

Although not on the Official RSD list for this month, Red House Records has announced a special release to coincide with Record Store Day (which is Saturday, April 18th this year).

In celebration for their newest label signee, Duluth, MN resident Charlie Parr and the release of his lucky 13th albumStumpjumper, Red House Records is pressing a limited-to-3000 7″ of album track “Over the Red Cedar” b/w his take on the folk standard “Delia.” The B-Side is available on the CD and download, but didn’t fit on the vinyl LP, so if you want “Delia” on vinyl, you need to get yourself one of these!

According to Red House, they will be distributing the singles to record stores to use as a free giveaway (likely with store purchase as other RSD promos have been in the past). It’s a given that the great record stores in Minnesota will carry these, but if you want to get one, you may want to reach out to your favorite store and see if they will be getting these.

Stumpjumper is coming out on April 28th and will be available via all your favorite ways to get digital downloads and CD/LP’s. I’ve been listening to it for a couple of weeks and in my opinion is the most polished album in his catalog and has some of my favorite songs of his already! Phil Cook of Megafaun and Hiss Golden Messenger helped produce the record.

The fine folks at Daytrotter recorded a session with Charlie and had the sense to press it up on vinyl with labelmate Dale Watson’s session. Click the picture:

This Friday, November 28 is Black Friday 2014, but more importantly is “Back to Black” Friday, or Black Friday Record Store Day. There are a few releases this time that I’m looking forward to, so I’m going to make the trek to Moondog Music in Dubuque– my regular RSD haunt.

According to the Wikipedia article on Bob Dorough, Columbia asked Davis to contribute a track to their upcoming Jingle Bell Jazz compliation and he called on Bob Dorough to collaborate since Davis was a fan of Dorough’s 1956 album Devil May Care. The resulting sessions yielded the dark and antithematic holiday track in “Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern).” During those same 2-day sessions, Dorough also tracked “Nothing Like You” which would eventually end up on Davis’s 1967 album Nefertiti. Davis wrapped those sessions up with a version of “Devil May Care.” This single for RSD is “Blue Xmas” on the A side and Davis’s version of “Devil May Care” on the flip.

The two tracks were previously also included in the 1970 import collection Facets Vol. 1.

Here is “Blue Xmas”

Here is “Devil May Care”

So, a release with a really interesting pedegree and one that is pretty essential for Miles Davis fans.

10-25-14 Update: This box set has been confirmed for Back to Black Friday on 11/28 by the official Record Store Day list. Bull Moose Records has the MSRP at $159.98 for the four LP’s which seems about in line with other single LP releases from Young– $40 a pop. A few copies of this have leaked onto eBay through some Eastern European countries like Hungary and Croatia. I got the updated images from one of the listings with better pictures.

3-19-14 Update: This release has been pushed back to November. I’m assuming that it will be Black Friday Record Store Day 11/28/2014. I don’t have confirmation on this. The press release says, “due to several other projects that Young has in the works that he wishes to focus on.”

The curious part of this is that these box sets would almost have to have been manufactured at this point to make it for RSD one month from now considering the complexity of the packaging, so I don’t know why they would hold it up on Neil’s availability, though he would have to have the last signoff I suppose. They don’t say what projects these are, but we know about Pono and his recent media blitz for that and the announced A Letter Home lo-fi album recorded with Jack White, he also apparently has a Sci-Fi book in the works to be titled “Special Deluxe.” According to this article at Billboard, he also wants to do an orchestral album– monophonic to one mic.

The original post:

This week Warner Brothers Records announced their Record Store Day (Saturday, April 19th this year, folks) special releases. In amongst the Tegan and Sara, Mastodon, Green Day and the regular avalanche of Flaming Lips there was a real eye-opener: Neil Young Official Release Series Discs 5 -8!

Unconfirmed Cover art for Official Release Series 5-8

The first Official Release Series was announced in 2009 and included the first four albums in Young’s catalog: Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush and Harvest, representing the years 1969 – 1972. This release was timed with the first Neil Young Archives box set of his first recorded decade from 1963 – 1972.

The new Official Release Series has the next four LP’s in his solo catalog: Time Fades Away (1973), On the Beach (1974), Tonight’s The Night (1975) and Zuma (1975). From the Warner’s press release: “Each remastered from the original analog studio recordings at Bernie Grundman Mastering. The artwork is a historically accurate reproduction by Young’s long-time art director, Gary Burden. These classics are being reissued on 180-gram audiophile vinyl for the first time and pressed at the world’s premiere pressing plant, Pallas MFG Germany.” Bernie Grundman and Pallas were responsible for the first box as well. The release says that it will come in a “telescoping box” which I’d never heard of. From what I can tell, this just means that it isn’t a common slipcase style box (the Grateful Dead box for example), but a box just like the first Official Release Series where the “lid” of the box covers the bottom (think a typical board game box, for example). The box will be limited to 3200 and numbered.

Back then, the predicted next Official Release vinyl box set was 2010, so in typical fashion the Archives was late to deliver. We still don’t have a release date for the Archives Vol 2. box, so who knows what is actually holding that up, or why Neil is holding that up.

I incorrectly assumed that the Official Release box sets would be paired up with the Archives releases, which would be done to represent decades of Young’s career. The Archives Volume Two would likely represent 1973 – 1982, then. That represents 10 (well, 11, but I’ll get to that in a minute) LP’s and would need to be split up. I guessed it would come out as two five-LP boxes.

The eye-opener with this release is the inclusion of the contraversial Time Fades Away live album! I speculated in the 2009 article that it would not get the vinyl reissue treatment. There is a lot of information about this album available on line, but the reason this is surprising is that Young has expressed his dissatisfaction with this album and when he at long last reissued some of the “missing six” albums in 2003 on CD he left Time Fades Away out. All of the “missing six” got a remastering in 1995, but Young was famously dissatisfied with CD audio, so it took until the advent of higher-resolution HDCD and DVD-A for him to release On The Beach, American Stars n Bars, Hawks & Doves, and Re-Ac-Tor as part of his “Digital Masterpiece Series.”

Time Fades Away is referred to as being part of the “Ditch Trilogy” of post-Harvest albums which also includes On The Beach and Tonight’s The Night. So, this box set brings the trilogy back together. These LP’s are so-named due to a quote from the Decade liner notes: “” ‘Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch.” And, it was a dark ditch– the tour that made up all of the songs except for one was a mess. Neil had fired Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse ahead of the tour and Whitten OD’d right after that. The depression, funk and drinking that followed made for a very erratic and tumultuous tour for everyone involved. Factor in the new and faulty mastering technology that Young was trying for these recordings and you get an album that was doomed from the start.

Original copies of Time Fades Away on vinyl are generally pretty easy to get ahold of and most of them seem to be in really good condition. I guess that most of the people who bought it were expecting a continuation of the sound from Harvest. I’ve actually bought two copies in the last few years and didn’t pay over $10 for them.

I’m certain that the inclusion of Time Fades Away in this box set signals the inclusion of it in the next box set. The 2-channel masters of the original pressing of Time Fades Away don’t exist, so this pressing and subsequent versions would have to be honest-to-goodness remixed and remastered versions from the original 16-track tapes. It’s possible that the masters used here would be based on the 1995 remasters. It isn’t clear whether Time Fades Away will also get a CD release, though it would be time to capitalize on this. Young didn’t release Journey Through The Past as an individual release (also part of the “Missing Six”), but it was in the Archives Box. According to Wikipedia, Young mentioned a Time Fades Away II that would be included in the next box which would be made up of songs from a different part of the tour that had a different band.

Based on an online music store that had it listed (and now taken down!), the MSRP on Official Release Series Discs 5-8 will be about $160. That’s $10 more than the first box, and based on the crazy prices for new Neil Young vinyl, I guess that is about in-line. That makes all four single-LP’s about $40 apiece.

Since I have the first box set (got it as a gift from my wife!) I’m interested in getting this one as well– I’m a fan of all four albums. I have original pressings of these except for Tonight’s the Night.

My Modified Speculation on the future Official Release Series Box Sets

So, what do we know based on this release? Well, for one thing, the boxes are 4 LP and don’t directly coorespond to the Archives Releases (meaning they don’t cover the same time period by box). The releases are primarily Neil Young solo albums. We didn’t get any CSNY or Buffalo Springfield LP reissues as part of this– though this might be because the catalogs for these bands are not completely owned by Neil Young. This draws into question whether the 1976 Stills-Young Band album Long May You Run would be included in a future box.

Neil Young Official Release Series Discs 9-12 would include the following albums: American Stars n Bars (1977), Comes A Time (1978), Rust Never Sleeps (1979) and Live Rust 2 LP(1979). I like the arrangement of this box because it keeps Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust together as they are companion releases. If they decide to release the Stills-Young Band album, then it would be part of this box set– then they could push Live Rust to the next box.

Neil Young Official Release Series Discs 13-16 could include the following albums: Hawks & Doves (1980), Re-ac-tor (1981), Trans (1982) and Everybody’s Rockin’ (1983) bringing the first of the Geffen releases to bear. An alternative version of this might be to put Live Rust on here in the scenario where they included Long May You Run in the third box. Since Live Rust is 2 LP’s, then they could truncate this box at Re-Ac-Tor, ending the box with the last three Reprise releases. An argument for this box including up to Everybody’s Rockin’ is that 1983 ends the 2nd decade that could be included in the second Archives box set.

Neil Young Official Release Series Discs 17-20 could include the following albums: Old Ways (1985), Landing On Water (1986), Life (1987), This Note’s for You (1988). The last album marks the return of Neil Young to Reprise Records and the end of a rocky relationship with Geffen Records that ended with a lawsuit from the label accusing Neil of releasing works uncharacteristic of his career. The alternative release for this box would be one that completely encompassed the Geffen Years– especially if 13-16 didn’t include Trans and Everybody’s Rockin’.

Neil Young Official Release Series Discs 21-24 could include the following albums: Eldorado EP (1989), Freedom (1989), Ragged Glory (1990), Arc/Weld (1991) This box represents a kind of renaissance for Neil Young and an embracing of the louder sound that he trademarked with Crazy Horse. It should include the Eldorado EP since it was a formal release (even though it was only available in Japan and Australia). I would expect to see a tandem release of Times Square— the lost album that ended up making Freedom, Eldorado and This Note’s For You. He could release that 20-minute version of “Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero)” as part of that.

Obviously, no one can predict what Neil Young will do– every time you think you know what he will or won’t release, he changes it up. What the hell happened to the Homegrown “lost album” release, for example? Young is an artist more interested with new releases than focusing on his past. For the faithful, that means he’ll keep cranking out new albums until he can’t do it anymore.

As far as the Archives and Official Release Series are concerned, he’ll need to step up the pace of these. Five years between them (based on the first two) would put 21-24’s release date in 2034!?

In the list for the Record Store Day 2013 (April 20, 2013) releases I noticed under LP’s that there will be a LP + CD release of Spiritoso by Calexico. The notes say that this was originally available only as a vinyl release on tour. While I’m not sure about that, it was part of the special box set release of Algiers— Calexico’s most recent album release. Here is what City Slang (Calexico’s European label who put out the box set) said about it:

Spiritoso [is] a full album of superb live recordings from two shows in Vienna and Potsdam [last] summer, with full symphonic orchestras. Here’s the tracklisting:

* Live with the Radio Symphonic Orchestra Vienna
** Live with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg

Here is a video of “Para” with the Radio Symphonic Orchestra Vienna.

Calexico is normally a band with a very complex sound, but having them backed by a symphony is a whole new experience as you can tell from the video above. If you didn’t order or missed out on the box set that included this– here is your 2nd chance!

At this point the importance of Miles Davis groundbreaking work on his 1959 release Kind of Blue is well-established. Recorded over two dates in 1959 (March 2nd and April 22nd at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio) and featuring the legendary “First Sextet” lineup of Davis, Julian Adderley, John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly/Bill Evans (Kelly was on “Freddie Freeloader”), Paul Chambers and James Cobb. This is the band that Davis started his experimentation with modal jazz and the move away from his hard bop style. Though Kind of Blue is heralded as the pinnacle of modal style, Davis had already been working with it on his 1958 release Milestones, suggesting that Coltrane was the catalyst of this move.

Kind of Blue stands head and shoulders above many other jazz releases in popularity– depending on who you believe, it may be the greatest selling jazz release of all time. It certainly represents an important release in my jazz collection. When people who are unfamiliar with jazz ask me where to start listening, it is a safe bet to suggest Kind of Blue. So much about the album lends itself to being a springboard of sorts to more jazz– Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans’s participation alone will send the newly motivated jazz investigator down some very important and landmark releases in the jazz canon.

Of course, these facts are not lost on the label custodian of Miles Davis’s catalog– Sony/BMG. I don’t think I can even count the reissues of just Kind of Blue that have happened over the years. For the 50th Anniversary of Kind of Blue in 2008, Sony Legacy released a beautifully-packaged release that included a clear-blue vinyl stereo LP (which fixed the long-standing mastering error that had side 2 at the wrong speed), 1 CD of Kind of Blue with an alternate take of “Flamenco Sketches” and session chatter, 1 CD with five tracks from a May 26, 1958 session and a live version of “So What” from April 9, 1960 in Holland. There was also a DVD documentary of the album, and a beautiful book, posters and photos. This is the version I have in my collection.

So, I was surprised to see in the Record Store Day list diligently maintained at Wax Poetic the mention of an LP called The Kinda Blue Sessions ’59. Some quick googling turned up some information about it, but not a lot of details. It is on Birdland Records and distributed by RedEye. (Birdland also has an interesting Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Munich ’59 live release). At SpinCD’s website, they provide the tracklist and credits:

Initially I was a little concerned that this would be a release of only the additional tracks on the first CD of the 2008 Sony Legacy release of false starts and studio sequences. In fact, these are in exactly the same order, but it’s missing the tracks from “Flamenco Sketches” making this a release that– including the “Flamenco Sketches” chatter and false starts would have only been 10 minutes long!

But, the notable absence of the “Flamenco Sketches” sequences and the one outtake that they released on the Legacy release of “Flamenco Sketches” would make this, although interesting from a collector’s standpoint, a pretty lame release out of the context of full songs. Especially at $29 MSRP.

The Kind of Blue Studio Sessions and Outtakes notes lists this track listing:

Since we know that an LP can be at the most 24 minutes per side, if you take out the 24 minutes of “Flamenco Sketches,” it would fit on one LP. Though, they could include “Flamenco Sketches” as a bonus track on the CD they are including.

The only caveat I’d mention here is that these recordings are direct dumps of the safety masters of each of the sessions (Columbia 62290, 62291, 62292, 62293, 62294) and include the tape starts and stops and have some cut outs– possibly from the tape edits? I suspect that due to the very few extra full takes available, this may include takes that were used on the official release of Kind of Blue, which begs the question about the legitimacy of the release.

Based on the wonderful Miles Ahead Sessions Information database which articulates all of the details of the sessions down to the studio chatter, here is what I know about the possible tracks:

1. Freddie Freeloader Session – This is Take 2, Take 3, Take 4 – An Edit of Take 4 was used on the official release.

2. So What Session – This is the full Take 3- An Edit of Take 3 was used on the official release. The bootleg includes Cannonball Adderley singing “with a song in my heart…” at the end.

3. Blue in Green Session – Take 2, Take 3, Take 4, Take 5 – An Edit of Take 5 was used on the official release.

4. All Blues Session – Take 1 – An Edit (faded) version was used on the official release. The bootleg includes the unfaded end with Paul Chambers panting at the end and saying “Damn…” part of “Damn that’s a hard mother!”

If this release is the Kind of Blue Sessions and Outtakes version, I’ll be happy to have this in my collection! The sound is incredible– which isn’t surprising considering the source, but certainly one I’d play. It’s great to hear the musicians working through what would become one of the most important jazz albums in history.

We’re just getting the early reports of what the brick and mortar treasures will be, and I’ll be reporting on the ones that I think are interesting. The first one up is a limited-edition 7″ 45 RPM single from Hiss Golden Messenger of the Poor Moon song “Jesus Shot Me In The Head” b/w a Dub reworking of the A side titled “Jesus Dub” appropriately enough. This record will be on Tompkins Square Records which is primarily a folk and Americana reissue label which recently has been expanding into new releases, which will include a CD reissue of Hiss Golden Messenger’s 2011 release Poor Moon, which had been a digital and vinyl only release originally.

The record will be in stores on Record Store Day (4/21/12) and a limited few will be available through MC Taylor. The record will be distributed by Fontana, so ask your favorite local record store to order one for you to avoid the inevitable eBay inflation!

Read this interview with Tomkins Square label head Josh Rosenthal where he mentions HGM.